Order Up!

Jun 30, 2008

RAY: This is for the kids out on summer school vacation so they can keep their little brains sharp. I didn't want to make it too difficult because, after all, summer is a time to renew, regenerate, relax, relearn, relate and all those "re-" things. This came from Lou Gottlieb.

Everyone knows what an omelet is, right? An omelet is made with scrambled eggs that are only scrambled in the bowl and not scrambled in the pan. An omelet is folded over.

I was at a restaurant the other day, and there was a sign that said, "All of our omelets were made with three eggs." And I looked at the menu and realized that there was maybe a puzzler here.

The first three omelets were cheese omelets: 7-dollars-45-cents; Bacon omelet: 7-dollars-70-cents.
Bacon and cheese omelet: 8-dollars-45-cents.

The question is: what's the plain omelet cost? (Just the eggs, no bacon, no cheese).

Answer:

RAY: Here's the answer to the delicious puzzler. You could write an equation and say X equals the eggs, and X plus B plus C equals $8.45. But just think about it for a second...

TOM: Oh, that was the missing piece, I had to think about it?!

RAY: If the cheese omelet is $7.45, and the bacon and cheese omelet is $8.45, then the bacon must cost a dollar.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: So if the bacon omelet is $7.70 and we know that the bacon costs a dollar, then subtract $1 and you get $6.70 for an egg omelet.

TOM: See, if I had thought of it for a minute, I still wouldn't have figured it out!

RAY: That's why most of your answers are unencumbered by the thought process! Do we have a winner?

TOM: The winner this week is Gerald Pinzino, from Homewood, Illinois, and for having his answer selected at random from among the pile of correct answers that we got, Gerald is going to get a $26 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at cartalk.com with which he can get our brand-new four-CD set, Field Guide to the North American Whacko.